The Schumann Symphonies at La Monnaie

‘The laws of morals are also that of art’. Schumann believed the artist had a moral duty : ‘To send light deep into the human heart – that is the artist’s mission.’ His whole oeuvre, and his four symphonies in particular, reflects this. If 1840 was Schumann’s ‘Liederjahr’, 1841 was the year of his symphonies, and by the time he concluded his cycle ten years later, he had redrawn the borders of the genre once and for all : from the evolution from his Frühling symphony to the Rhenish, we see how he broke with the standard of the classical symphony through programmatic elements and a five-part form. With these works, which revel in an atmosphere of high romanticism, Schumann reached a high point and a temporary finishing point. In performing all of Schumann’s symphonies, Ludovic Morlot pays tribute to one of the great, underrated symphonists of the 19th century.